Friday, May 4, 2007

Just a passing thought
Why do people seem complacent? I just want to know. I want to know why people believe that there just fine where they are. You've got the guy who weights 800 lbs. and thinks nothing of it. The high school kid with failing grades and doesn't give it a thought.

When was it that people stopped caring? And why is it that the few people who still care get ridiculed by those who don't. The kids who worry about there grades have to worry about catching crap from the ones who don't. The people who are actually concerned about americas politics have to take crap from those who thinks it's a stupid waste of time.

Everyone has become fans of the idea that you can't change anything so why put forth the effort. When did this happen? Why did it happen? Is it just sheer laziness, or do people just expect everything to turn out alright in the end simply by letting things take there natural course.

It worries me everytime I see some kid standing a street corner at noon, smoking with his friends who look like they probably dropped out already. I watched alot of people call it quits back in high school and I never knew one of them to ever finish there GED either. They just didn't care.

Just the other day I ran into a kid I knew a few years back when I was a freshman. He dropped out in his junior year and was convinced that he would get his GED and be just fine. 5 years later, no GED, and working as the cashier to a McDonalds. 22 years old working under a 20 year old assistant manager. And I asked him right then "Was is worth it?"

He looked to me like he wanted to punch me, but ultiamtly said nothing. I took my food and I left, but the thought of what has happend to him has plagued me ever since that moment. I just don't understand it.

Alright, enough moping, it's time for a few more new rules.

All right. New Rule: Someone has to explain to President Bush that a timetable doesn't involve him actually having to know his times tables. I finally figured out the problem. Someone suggests "timetable" and he thinks, "6 times 9; 8 times 7...f*** it, no way, stay the course."

New Rule: Tell your kid to stop staring at me. I just watched you cave in to each of his in-flight demands, for his Teddy Grahams, his sippy-cup, his "gankie." And now you're going to let him turn around and eyeball me for a half-hour. Geez, you'd never think he's seen a guy get a handjob on a plane before.

New Rule: Let the Bush twins have a cocktail. You know, every time one of the Bush twins is spotted with a drink, somebody puts a picture of it on the Internet. Who cares?! You don't worry about a Bush when they're drinking. Worry about them when they get sober! These girls are 24, and I, for one, applaud their self-control. If my dad were President Bush, I'd be drunk in public so often, James Baker would have me killed.

And finally, New Rule, in two parts: A) You can't call yourself a think tank if all your ideas are stupid. And B), if you're someone from one of the think tanks that dreamed up the Iraq War, and who predicted that we'd be greeted as liberators, and that we wouldn't need a lot of troops, and that Iraqi oil would pay for the war, that the WMD's would be found, that the looting wasn't problematic, and the mission was accomplished, that the insurgency was in its last throes, that things would get better after the people voted, after the government was formed, after we got Saddam, after we got his kids, after we got Zarqawi, and that the whole bloody mess wouldn't turn into a civil war...you have to stop making predictions!

You know, there's a name for people who are always wrong about everything all the time: husbands. You know, it's a shame what happened to think tanks. They used to produce valuable, apolitical analysis. But partisanship crept into many of them. And the Bush Administration doesn't just come up with something as stupid as "If we leave now, they'll follow us home." No, they have someone from a think tank say it first. It's a way to lend respectability. The same reason a titty bar has food. I hear.

The think tanks that incubated the Iraq war have lofty names like the Heritage Foundation and the Project for a New American Century. Whatever. They've been wrong so often, I'm surprised they're not my broker. Richard Perle thought we could win Iraq with 40,000 troops. Paul Wolfowitz predicted, in 2003, that within a year, the grateful people of Baghdad would name some grand square in their fine city after President Bush. And he was right when he said they'd be waving American flags. They were on fire.

William Kristol pooh-poohed the fears that Sunnis and Shiites would be at each others' throats, as "the stuff of pop psychology." Right. And having your head chopped off is just a quick way to drop 11 pounds. Kristol, of course, is revered by much of the right because he was Dan Quayle's chief of staff, and was known as "Quayle's Brain." You know that. Which sounded impressive until I remembered Dan Quayle didn't have a brain.

And now, Mr. Kristol proposes immediate military action against Iran, predicting the Iranians will thank us for it. Hey, you know what, Nostrodamus? Why don't you sit this one out?

We'll get by using the Magic Eight Ball for a while. Because you guys have been so wrong about so much for so long, people are actually turning to the Democrats. So, we can say Iraq was a noble experiment, if that helps you. Our intention was good: to penetrate Iraq and bring it to a glorious, euphoric climax. But it's clear now that's just not going to happen. And yet we're still pounding away.

Causing the whole area to become painfully inflamed. And in that situation, the kindest thing you can do is...just pull out.
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